


Emotionally Laid

by dawgsprite



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Death, Gore, Robots, Violence, a robot has an existential crisis over love, i cried a lil while writing this both times, i was forced to finish and post it on mobile lmao, uh excuse errors/shittiness towards the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:19:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4224987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawgsprite/pseuds/dawgsprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>smol piece based on an au i did/am doing with a friend of mine where bro's a robot who kind of lost his mind and wants to kill every and all sentient creature starting with all trolls and humans on earth</p>
<p>he runs into alpha dave (who goes by dominic) and after some shit that's not mentioned in this piece comes back to him</p>
<p>it's great and i might make it into a bigger piece</p>
<p>if i do make it into a bigger piece oops just spoiled a bigass thing lmao</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emotionally Laid

You find him, in the same place you last saw him almost a year before, dying. 

You remember the last thing that had happened, surprisingly enough-- it had been the quick bromise that you would kill him eventually and his sarcastic and equally as rapid response of 'no thanks', and it had been punching Dominic hard enough in the stomach to make him topple like a pile of mismatched stones onto the floor of Dirk's medical room, before flashstepping out of the room and locking it behind you. You could almost smell the very relief and pain coming from Dominic's brainwaves, knowing just how desperately thankful the man was for an excuse to just lay there and not try and stop your unstoppable body from the slaughter he so vehemently protested a few minutes before. 

He was glad that you left the bruise on his skin, glad that you locked the door, glad that he was excused from certain death to instead crawl up to the bed where Dirk slept and pull his lanky body close, glad that he could burrow into the back of his li'l brother's neck and pretend he couldn't hear the screams of his large group. He pretended not to hear your murder spree, pretended not to hear the revolting sound your boots made against the blood slick floors as they kicked around the gore and marred viscera of humans' remains. You had no respect for the dead unless they had earned your respect in what little time they had before their deaths to witness you. 

When you began to march out of the base on that day, your feet paused in front of the door marked "MEDICAL WARD #413", and you took a scan of the life signs in there. There are two, as to be expected, but your curiosity and artificial amusement piques when you take a full scan of both lifeforms. One is, of course, deeply sleeping, taking in smooth and slow breaths through his semi parted lips while his arms splay out on the bed in frog of him, but the other? He is in panic, his breathing hitching dramatically with each breath so he's nearly panting, heartbeat skyrocketed and ascending dangerously high while he takes note of your still black outline in the fuzzy door's window. However, you bromised not to kill him or Dirk when he gave you back your body-- at least, in that situation, at that time. So you keep moving and walk out the door, black frame spattered with bits of brightly colored insides and life, a piece of someone's stomach clinging to your chest (how did it get up there?) before you flick it off in distaste. Sentient lifeforms were disgusting. 

And they still were, almost a year later after you'd circled most of the coastline of a continent fomerly called America, and you doubted they would ever change, from the howling shriek of a troll as you ripped out the drippy parasite between their legs from a sheath and shoved your handmade sword into its brief sheath through the eye of one of your creators' species, to when you dismembered a human in seconds with your tentacles when they underestimated you and had their appendage-less torso drop to the ground in punishment. It was so pathetic how easy these creatures were to destroy in the most gruesome of ways, whether it be ripping through layers of fat and muscle to rip out their food processing pouch organ and squeeze it till it burst and spilled semi-digested food all over your fingers or ripping off a half-sharp horn and nailing a troll's head to the ground through their mouth with the multicolored bone. Even through all of these unnecessarily gory kills you could not stop thinking of the two you couldn't kill, the two you couldn't rip apart like paper, the two brothers you'd left alone in the base to their own wits behind a locked door. However, your thoughts would soon be appeased when you crossed the nonexistent boarder into a large deserty area formerly called Texas, and the last place you saw the only people to ever escape your claws. 

When you stumble upon it, the base looks... Shitty. It's front door hangs half open and you see the various marks of burns and bullets as you push the large panel and open up the base again, interested to see how time and you suppose sentient life has given a half assed attempt at cleaning the bodies and the blood of those who you crushed. Sand loosely collects itself in the edges of the hallways, wearing away the stone and concrete structure around you, making you give a silent and metaphorical nod out to Mother Nature for being able to create such a destructive force out of nothing but granules of worn down rock and rapidly moving air. When you reach what you remembered from your time spent in Dirk's physical form as the common room, a place now filled with ripped furniture and broken items of significant value and some skeletal corpses in the corners, your solid orange eyes slide shut and you give a quick scan of the area. You don't expect anything but a few lizards and maybe a coyote or two, both of which would go unharmed due to their non-sentience. 

It's quite a surprise when you find one feeble sign of sentient life, a large human form in a room formerly dictated as the 413th medical ward. 

You immediately jog towards the room with steady, heavy feet that only slow when you're within hearing range of quiet, labored breathing and a slight drip of blood onto the floor of the room you'd left them in all those months before. And, for whatever reason, you're honestly not that surprised that its Dominic sitting on the floor in the corner of the room when you enter, an empty gun under his left palm and a small but fatal bullet wound in his stomach under his right hand. His eyes open, and he sees you kneeling next to him. “We meet again,” You intone.

"Lying bastard," he grunts back to you, making your faux eyebrow raise a little, "you said you wouldn’t kill me in the end, but the last sight I'm oh-so-luckily ever gonna see is your glistening face. Thought you wouldn’t go through with it, boy was I wrong."  
"Hello to you too, Dominic." You reply without a beat, making him mutter and roll his eyes. "You ain't got much time, bodysnatcher--"  
"That was one time and I was desperate."  
"-- I'm gonna be dead soon, and you know it." His right hand raises, showing off with an air of unnatural cockiness the blood staining his albino skin, which had somehow paled even more due to the fast and high amount of blood loss. "Don't worry, Dominic," You say without an ounce of worry in your quasi-robotic tone, "I believe that you've won my respect by how you put up with me when we first met in Dirk's body, and plan to kill you in most humane way possible." A pause. "Where is Dirk?"

Dominic's breathing adjusts slightly and you tilt your head, body pressing close to his as he speaks a slight bit softer. "He left. He stayed with me for a good few years but he left, like everyone should and did, and I assume he's still out there somewhere fighting off humanity and trolls alike. Or maybe you've killed him. Have you killed him?" His maroon eyes flick over to look at the solid triangular sunglasses you wear, staring at the almost twin of his little brother, before you shrug and shake your head. "Nah, don't think so. I'd remember killing him, I'd remember killing a man that skilled with a katana, or at least, the fight he'd no doubt put up. Always respected Dirk, in a sense."

At that, Dominic gives a disbelieving snort. "Yeah, that's why you hacked into his body with your weird unnatural AIs and Infinity Code bullshit and stayed as him for like, six months, and gored way too many people for me to even look at him right again. You changed my very perception of my lil’ bro, and yet you still think you respected him?”  
“Well, I think that your human perception of respect might differnciate itself from mine, you know?”  
“Yeah, but I doubt that robots find possession a sign of respect, either.”  
“In order to have a rule, you have to have anomalies.”  
“Bullshit.”

You open up your arm cavity and watch two needles roll out into your palm, and you can sense his eyes flicker to look at them as well, making you look up and watch as his eyes glance from the needles to your solid orange ones, fatigue obvious in his gaze. “Don’t kill Dirk, though. Even if you don’t respect him-- I mean, with the cyborg arm you made us put on him all that while ago, he’s technically part robot anyways. Just, don’t hurt him.”  
“Of course not.” You lie through your teeth, and with the way his eyes glint in that suspicious manner, you know he doesn’t believe you, and his next words only affirm this studious assumption on your behalf. “How do I know you ain’t lying? I mean, you’re gonna kill me now, so you lied about that. Don’t lie to me again.”  
“This is a pity kill.”

You’ve offended him-- or at least, you assume you have when he snorts. “Wow, thanks for the pep boost. But, you can’t kill him, okay?” Your mouth parts for a second to begin speaking, but apparently he doesn’t want to stop. “And yeah, okay, I get that I’m not in the best of,” His voice stills for a second to take in a nice and shaky breath, “Not the best of health, but-”  
“I promise I won’t kill Dirk.”  
“Really? Pinky promise. Pinky promise me right now, motherfucker.” At the demanding tone in his unstable voice, you smile and hold out your cold black pinky, and repeat the word. “Promise.” He shakes your pinky with his, eyes still glittering with dying suspicion, and he speaks again. “This means you have to cut it off if you kill him.” 

“I know.” This makes his eyebrow raise for about .54 seconds, before it drops back down, as if the exersion of energy even that small movement takes is much too much for his weakening body. “Really? Do robots have that kind of thing?”  
“No, I just know a lot about humans. Know thine enemy, and whatever.”  
“Okay well, robots should have pink promises. You kinda look human, too. That’s weird-- for a robot you’re really weird.”  
“Not really. I find humans facinating.”  
“But yet, you wanna get rid of them. Genocide us.”  
“Mhm.” Your head bobs slightly in agreement with his un-grammatically correct statement, and you swear the minute press of his lips together shows confusion. 

“That’s really weird. Like, if you’re so facinated with them, how come you’re trying to get rid of them? Us. I mean, us. Shit.” Your eyes flick up and down his body again, and you can tell he’s getting a little fuzzy, but you give into his need to talk as his lungs expand to get another inhale to expel in his words. “The point is, when we’re all gone, what’s gonna interest you?”  
“Trolls, I guess. The rest of the universe.” His eyes roll, and you watch the maroon irises flick around the room in a movement that’s almost circular. “No, that’s dumb. Humans are way cooler.”  
“Maybe I’ll keep one of two of you around.”  
“No, keep a lot around so that way they can have kids. Human kids are way cooler-”  
“No, I’ll neuter them.”

“-like you know how people like puppies more than dogs- what.” His voice chokes off and he jerks back, though you see that the movement causes him pain. “What the fuck.”  
“I don’t want you reproducing.”  
“No, don’t do that. That’s terrible. Why would you do that-- no, kids are adorable. How can you not like kids.” At this point, with the amount of blood gushing out from behind his hand and out of the large rip through his flesh, stomach and some of his inner organs, his speech is getting slurry. His eyes glance back on over to the needle filled with clear fluid, and he forces himself to speak again. You doubt it’s healthy, but again he’s dying and you’re about to mercy kill him, you might as well let the man have this.

“Poke me with your needle, Doctopus,” He says as you test the needle with a small press before lining it up with his wrist, “you uh. The joke. You don’t… get it, I bet. Loser.”  
“I get it.”  
“Really…?” He asks as you press the needle in and inject its homemade contents into his skin, watching as the fluid disperses so he’ll fall asleep. Not soon, though. You never actually expected to use this on anyone -- as you prefer gory deaths to the simple and humane euthanization of putting one to sleep and giving them a lethal injection -- so you know the drug will take a little while to put him to sleep. You plan to make use of this time in whatever way you see fit. “Course I do,” You speak as you curl up next to his torso and bring his ichor-slick hand up to rest on your wiry, self made, spikey hair, “I’m a robot, not uncultured.”  
“That’s bullssssshit.”

You lapse into silence for a second, waiting for about half a minute for him to fall asleep and sighing quietly when he doesn’t. After a few more seconds of rapid thought, and a recollection to the memories of when you spent time in Dirk’s body and you and Dominic had cuddled up in Dirk’s medical bed, your head twitches to nudge against his palm. “Pet me?” Dominic sighs at your request and speaks, voice slurrying again. “Y’r like this big… ugly cat.” But, his fingers curl and he begins to pet your head, making you slump a little and curl up more against the side of his cooling body, eyes dimming slightly to barely a glow. “The ugliest fuckin’ cat.”  
“I’m not ugly.”  
“You’re ugly for a cat.”  
“That is true.”  
“‘m sure you’re a h’ndsome robob. Robot. Robot bob.”  
“I’m a very handsome robot bob.”  
“Yeah, ‘s what I figured.”

You go quiet for a few seconds, wondering if he’s fallen asleep, before his hand moves to continue petting you and he speaks again. Determined not to die, it seems. “Do robots even get laid? Like, emotionally. Emotionally laid. What’s the word for that again?”  
“Love?”  
“Yeah. But, isn’t that like… all the movies? The robot movies? You all fuckin’ get taught to love by a human. You’d think they’d jus’ teach you how, so that you d-don’t like… have to learn it. ‘nd compromise y’self.”  
“I don’t care about any other robots. I can’t love, but I want it.” Hell, he’s a dead man, you might as well confess. “I want affection.”  
“I know, I know. Cats are like that. They want love but they jus’, sit on you.” Your body shifts and you give the barest of nuzzles into his side as you quietly argue with a dying man. “No, I can’t love back. Cats can. I can’t.”

“That’s a fuckin’ lie.” Dominic scoffs quietly, though it’s weak and nothing like you’ve heard him do before. “No, it’s not-”  
“Cats are hellbeasts,” oh, that’s what he meant, “they don’t love they jus’ manipolate.”  
“Then I guess I’m a cat.” You scoot up a little and rest your head on Dominic’s chest, listening to his frail biological heart beat. “Just don’ sitton me, I’ll… die.”  
“Go to sleep, bro.” Your hand moves up and you push his eyelids down so he can rest like that, before your voice pattern changes and the next words out of your mouth don’t sound like your semi robotic, semi human voice-- it’s the same voice pattern of a young man, a teenager with a Texan twang, a kid named Dirk Strider. "Just sleep." Dominic takes a deep breath, and you can't tell what he's thinking. But he's feeling... Cold, and unsure. Sort of like he's falling backwards into a deep pit, and you can almost feel that -- or at least, how almost scared he is at what's coming next -- and you want to... Comfort him. So you move in close, closer to almost tucking your head down in under his chin, and speak again. 

"Love you, Bro," you say in Dirk's voice. 

And he knows its you, he knows its the murderous robot who goes by the same exact term that Dirk called him when he was younger, but it's nice to pretend.  
"I think you can love," he mutters. His voice is barely decipherable. "It's just selfish." Dominic might be wrong, but dying men listening to their sonbrother's voice tell them he loves them tend to get sentimental. You swallow. "Go to fuckin' sleep, Bro," you mutter back in a voice that's losing its composure, making it half Dirk's and half yours, a gruff and mechanical and unsure. Dominic wheezes-- he wants to chuckle, chuckle at your instability at his statement, but he's so tired. You look at the needle filled with black liquid, and as you look back, he droops. He's cold and heavy and soft, like uncooked dough, and he falls asleep. Your hand closes around the one that's stilled against your metal hair and pull in close to your cold chest for a few minutes, sitting there against the sleeping man's torso, before you sit up just slightly. 

You stretch out one of his arms and press the needle in again, injecting Dominic with the black sludge-like fluid and watching as it faded into his bloodstream, before you curl up back around him. Your head rests right between the slowing inhale and exhale of his throat and the sluggish best of his heart, and you curl up with him until his body is completely cold and you know he's dead. Quietly and peacefully, Dominic falls into the pit he's been avoiding for so much longer than he's expected, and his body goes up in flames when you set the base on fire to give him a proper funeral, one for gods and warriors of accident Nordic tales you've read about in your private rebooted Internet, and you save his voice pattern and habits into your system filed under "Strider, Dominic". 

And then, once the last ember goes out, you turn on your heel and begin to wander. You're not even sure where you're going at this point, but you do kill every human you come across with a certain violent passionate hatred vehemence. You kill them with this graphic loathing because Dominic was one of them and he, he and his idiotic human sentiment believed that you could love, and you understand the concept of death now-- mostly, at least. You want him to suffer for believing you, you want to maul him and feel his intestines against your fingertips as your scream at him if love was worth it, if believing a beast like you could love was worth it, what if even mean-- what you having selfish love meant, what you having love does and means, but you can't. And now, now you understand what humans feel, you really understand their grief and fear. Dominic isn't coming back. He will never come back. You squished him like a bug beneath your heel, just another part of the human race to be slaughtered. 

And when you find his DNA in the form of a bastard kid he never knew he had, you're not sure what to do.


End file.
